Today’s population health challenges are complex. Addressing these challenges and building environments that value and promote health for everyone requires expertise from multiple scientific disciplines and public and private partners.
Guided by the principles of scientific rigor, equity, justice, community engagement, and multidisciplinary and multi-institution collaboration, the Lerner Center’s mission is to improve population and community health through research, education, outreach and health promotion programming focused on the social, spatial and structural determinants of physical, mental and behavioral health and health disparities.
With faculty affiliates from public health, sociology, psychology, economics, medicine and public administration, the Lerner Center’s approach to research is both multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary.
Established in 2011 with an endowment from Sid and Helaine Lerner, the center fulfills its mission through the interrelated pillars of research, education, advocacy and action.
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Lerner Faculty Affiliate Amy Schwartz and colleagues secure $3.5 million NIH funding
September 27, 2021
Lerner Center Faculty Affiliate Amy Schwartz is the Principal Investigator on a new $3.5 million grant funded by the National Institute of Nursing Research. The project: “COVID-19, Vaccinations and School/Community Resources: Children's Longitudinal Health and Education Outcomes using Linked Administrative Data” will examine how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted children’s health and education in NYC over time, using a set of linked administrative data from multiple domains and including all children enrolled in the public school system. The study will determine how racial/ethnic and income disparities were affected, investigate the effects of vaccine availability and uptake, and explore the role of school and neighborhood resources in shaping outcomes and disparities. Michah Rothbart, Assistant Professor of Public Administration and International Affairs at SU, is a Co-Investigator on the project.
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Research Projects
Research by Lerner affiliates is regularly funded by the National Institutes of Health, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Russell Sage Foundation and many other federal agencies and foundations. The Lerner Center also funds population health research at Syracuse University through its Faculty Fellows Program.
Student Opportunities
Are you an undergraduate or graduate student at Syracuse University interested in population and community health? Do you seek a career with meaning and purpose?
The Lerner Center provides distinctive experience that combines traditional and applied training in population health and community health research and engagement to address pressing local, regional and national health problems and reduce health inequities—from academic certificates, to internships, to service learning opportunities and more.
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Lerner Faculty Affiliate Amy Schwartz and colleagues secure $3.5 million NIH funding
September 27, 2021
Lerner Center Faculty Affiliate Amy Schwartz is the Principal Investigator on a new $3.5 million grant funded by the National Institute of Nursing Research. The project: “COVID-19, Vaccinations and School/Community Resources: Children's Longitudinal Health and Education Outcomes using Linked Administrative Data” will examine how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted children’s health and education in NYC over time, using a set of linked administrative data from multiple domains and including all children enrolled in the public school system. The study will determine how racial/ethnic and income disparities were affected, investigate the effects of vaccine availability and uptake, and explore the role of school and neighborhood resources in shaping outcomes and disparities. Michah Rothbart, Assistant Professor of Public Administration and International Affairs at SU, is a Co-Investigator on the project.
Related News
Media Coverage
May 22, 2026
School News
May 22, 2026
Research
May 21, 2026